Boys Ranch and the Ghost of Old Tascosa

The community of Boys Ranch sits on the ruins of Old Tascosa, a lawless cattle-trail town on the Canadian River that during the eighteen eighties earned a rough reputation as the Cowboy Capital of the Plains. Tascosa faded when the railroad bypassed it, and by the early twentieth century it was nearly empty. In nineteen thirty-nine, former professional wrestler and Amarillo businessman Cal Farley arrived at the derelict site, opened the old Tascosa county courthouse, and moved in the first boys who had nowhere else to go.

Rancher Julian Bivins donated the original hundred and twenty acres. In time, many more boys were living and working on the land. Today, Cal Farley's Boys Ranch is a nationally recognized residential program serving at-risk youth.

The Boot Hill cemetery from Old Tascosa's violent days is still there, close to where the boys live.